Ultimately, I guess it is the perfect bike to market. Is it aero? Kind of. Is it light? Yeah. Is it stiff? Sure. Sort of the old saying, Jack of all trades, Master of none. The perfect bike for your dentist.

First, thanks for posting the data!!! (previous page)

I disagree the brakes are going to be a big problem, and only because Trek has a massive dealer network, and the dealers simply wouldn't tolerate some sort of fringe maintenance nightmare.

On the "master of none" comment: compromise between various design trade-offs is the essence of engineering. Few people buy a bike for a single narrow specialty. Bikes needs to be well-rounded to win races.

2.1 FrameThe KVF tube shape allowed Trek to decrease overall bike wind resistance.Trek relied heavily on KVF shaping on the head tube, down tube, seat tube andseatstays. This reduced the frame drag by 60 grams, while simultaneouslyimproving the structural performance of the frame.2.2 Fork/brakesOne of the most important components on a bicycle in terms of aerodynamic drag isone of the first things to see the wind: the fork. Trek attacked the problem with twokey technologies: the KVF tube shape on the legs, and the integrated front brake. Trekengineers started with the aerodynamic performance of Speed Concept’s 3-to-1-ratioKVF tubes for the upper portion of the legs, and then blended to a 2-to-1 ratio for thelower legs for improved performance and weight. The combined effect of optimizedaero shape and integrated front brake decreased aerodynamic drag by 76 grams.2.3 HandlebarThe other key component on the front end of the bike to significantly affectaerodynamics is the handlebar. Trek engineers applied KVF tube shaping tothe center sections of the handlebar to further reduce drag by 90 grams

Epic-o wrote:

spartan wrote:

your local trek dealer should have copy..whitepaper available on trek's dexter dealer site.

It appears they tested without a rider. Since they claim 70 grams (sic) of drag reduction from the handlebars alone, I suspect that this advantage is considerably less with a rider filling the space behind the handlebars. Air which clears the bars on an empty bike is home free. With a rider, it's doomed anyway.

I like the move to brakes attached at multiple points instead of just one. It's old school new again, actually.

On the "master of none" comment: compromise between various design trade-offs is the essence of engineering. Few people buy a bike for a single narrow specialty. Bikes needs to be well-rounded to win races.

I totally agree that you can't have it all, you have to make compromises. I think the compromises in this case are weird. Looking at the depth of the tube shapes, it looks like there was more emphasis on ride quality and weight rather than aerodynamics. However, the bike is clearly being marketed as an aero bike. Hell at 750 grams with a 5 gram paint job, why not just sell it as an ultralight with aero sections.

In the end you have a bike with fairly shallow tubes (even when compared to other Kamm'd frames like the FOIL), a huge, blunt bottom bracket area, a round seat mast, and a downtube no where near the front wheel. Obvious design decisions were made to compromise all over the frame, but then you do something extremely controversial like using proprietary brakes. And not do something as simple as clean up the cabling.

Ultimately, the funny thing about this bike is that given my experience with Trek, the compelling selling point here is that you get a Trek bike (I've liked the recent Madone carbon offerings I've tried but the only Treks I've owned were the Fuel 9.9 when it first came out and the TTX more recently) with their geometry and ride quality, but at an ultralight 750grams. Throw in their dealer network and the awesome Project One and it is a great bike. I don't really need it to be aero. They had me at 750gram Trek Madone.

i like this frameset. wonder how much the brakes weigh. i hate all the marketing mumbo jumbo - oclv 700 hexSL carbon. seems like they are using hexcel im10 carbon which is stronger and stiffer than toray T1000. Made in USA is such a big thing for me, im a sucker for that.

I have heard from several people who have spent considerable time in the wind tunnel that testing a frame with a rider on vs. not having a rider un doesn't make considerable differences with the overall drag of the frame. I think Mark Cote and a few other industry guys have said that.

_________________"Marginal gains are the only gains when all that's left to gain is in the margins."

I have heard from several people who have spent considerable time in the wind tunnel that testing a frame with a rider on vs. not having a rider un doesn't make considerable differences with the overall drag of the frame. I think Mark Cote and a few other industry guys have said that.

what is the impact/difference a frame makes compared to the drag a persons body makes at say 40km/h?

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